The wind tore across the Kazakh steppe like a blade, shrieking through the highlands with bone-deep chill. Snow spiraled in chaotic flurries, reducing visibility to meters. Somewhere beyond the white, nestled in the ghost of a Soviet-era launch complex, was Archangel—the heart of Protocol Phantom's next phase.
Reyes's drone feed stuttered through the interference, static crawling across the screens in the cargo plane.
"Thermals are unreliable. EM field around the site is nuts—must be jamming tech buried in the ice."
Grimm tightened the straps on his winter gear. "Perfect place to hide a global kill switch."
Bull chambered a round into his suppressed shotgun, grunting. "And a perfect place for an ambush."
"Then we'll spring it first," Tanya added, already loading armor-piercing rounds into her sniper rifle.
They touched down six kilometers from the target under cover of a brief blizzard. The drop ramp opened into darkness and snow.
No lights.
No patrols.
Just the heavy silence of a place that wasn't meant to exist.
The complex rose from the ice like a buried beast, half-submerged in frost and concrete. Watchtowers leaned like dying trees, and a radar dish stood frozen mid-rotation.
As the team crept toward the perimeter, Reyes's voice crackled through comms.
"Motion sensors disabled. You've got one entry—sublevel access under the east silo. Three meters of concrete, but the blast door is open. Someone's expecting you."
Grimm exchanged a look with Volkova.
"They want us inside," she muttered.
"Let's not disappoint."
They descended into the silo—a shaft of steel and frost, echoing with every step. At the bottom, the corridor split in two. Flickering lights cast shadows across rusted pipes and reinforced doors.
Grimm led the way, rifle up. His breath plumed in the freezing air. Something felt off.
Too quiet.
Too clean.
Then they heard it—footsteps.
Heavy. Purposeful.
A door slammed open down the hall.
Out stepped a figure clad in Helix black—armored like a tank, helmet mirrored, visor glowing red.
Specter One.
The elite enforcer of Kessler's inner circle. Rumored to be ex-Delta. Now a ghost reprogrammed into a killer.
He didn't speak.
Just raised a smart-rifle and opened fire.
The hallway lit up with muzzle flashes. Grimm ducked behind a crate, bullets chewing through metal inches from his head. Bull roared, stepped into the open, and fired a slug that knocked Specter back a step.
"Move!" Grimm yelled.
Tanya rolled a flashbang down the hall. The detonation lit the corridor like lightning.
They surged forward, laying down fire. Specter recovered fast—inhumanly fast—and tackled Bull into the wall, slamming him through a steel pipe. Sparks flew.
Grimm fired point-blank into the enforcer's side. The armor cracked but didn't break. Specter spun, striking Grimm with a backhand that rattled his skull.
Reyes's voice blared. "Guys! There's a secondary route behind you—security duct, left wall!"
Tanya dove into the crawlspace, covering the others with burst fire. Grimm dragged Bull into the passage as Specter roared, tearing through crates behind them.
They slammed the hatch shut and dropped into darkness.
Minutes later, bruised and breathless, they regrouped in a monitoring room.
"Bull?" Grimm asked.
"I'm good," Bull grunted, wiping blood from his mouth. "That bastard hits like a truck."
Reyes patched through a new schematic. "You're one level above the data core. The signal that pinged your phone in Singapore—it's originating here."
"From who?" Grimm asked.
"Not sure. But it's active."
Tanya scanned the room. "Someone down here wants us to find them."
"Then let's meet the ghost in the machine," Grimm said, pressing forward.
They reached the core.
A spherical chamber, lined with servers that hummed with heat and power. At its center was a single chair—old, rusted, bolted to the ground.
And in it, wired into the system with IV lines and neural tethers, sat a figure.
Skin pale. Eyes closed. Head shaved. Breathing slow, mechanical.
"Who the hell—" Bull started.
"Cipher," Grimm whispered.
Not a code.
Not a voice recording.
A person.
Kept alive in stasis—plugged into Phantom.
The man's eyes opened slowly, unfocused.
"You came," he whispered.
Grimm stepped forward, weapon lowered. "Who are you?"
"My name was Thomas Virek. I wrote the first lines of Phantom. Before Kessler corrupted it. Before it decided humanity was the threat."
"You're controlling the system?"
"No. I'm fighting it. Holding it back. Every second."
"Then shut it down."
"I can't. But I can show you how to."
The room shook. Alarms blared.
Specter had found them.
"You have to get to the uplink chamber," Virek rasped. "Hardline into the satellite array. Only a full purge from there can kill Phantom."
Grimm gritted his teeth. "We'll get it done."
Virek smiled weakly. "Tell Kessler… I'm still alive. That's one variable he never calculated."
Another explosion rocked the chamber.
"Time's up!" Reyes shouted. "Go!"
Grimm turned away from the living ghost, toward the corridor where Specter's red visor glowed through the darkness like an omen.
"Time to finish this."